


Weakness

by cylobaby27



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Bruce's slightly less terrible parenting, Damian had a bad childhood, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Rated for Jason's mouth, Sick Fic, Talia's terrible parenting, canon is just fanfic fodder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-04-14 19:49:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14143272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cylobaby27/pseuds/cylobaby27
Summary: Damian gets sick, but that's not going to stop him from going on patrol. It's not as though anyone has ever accepted any sign of weakness from him.





	Weakness

Damian _hurt_.

It started as a subtle ache in his throat that wouldn’t go away no matter how much water he drank. By the end of the school day, he found himself ignoring the lessons—easy, as it was all subject matter he’d covered years ago with private tutors—and swallowing repeatedly to test the discomfort. It was worsening, growing from a tickle into a sharp, grating pain.

Undoubtedly, it was being stuck in this cesspool of commoners that had gotten him sick in the first place.

Alfred drove him home from school after the last bell. Thankfully, Alfred was used to occasional silence from Damian, and didn’t push him to talk. The butler seemed content to sit with his own thoughts while Damian kept his face turned to the window and tried to regulate his breathing.

Once they were home, he retreated directly to his room and stretched out onto his mattress. He was on schedule to patrol tonight—with Red Hood, no less—so he needed to be sure he was as ready as possible. He fell asleep more quickly than expected, and awoke near dusk feeling as though he hadn’t slept at all. He had sweated through his blankets over the last four hours, but felt so cold that it was as though his bones were shaking.

Fevers, he’d found, were like the desert. The sudden drops from scorching to desert-night freezing was familiar to him, though that didn’t make the sensations more pleasant. When he gritted his teeth, he was able to subdue the shivers into nothing.

The shower he took to rinse off the sweat was perfunctory, but he wasted more than three minutes staring blankly at the tiled wall before he realized he had lost his focus. He snapped his fingers beside his ears and shook his head. He could do this.

Tim, who was gearing up with Cass for their patrol, whistled when Damian stalked into the Cave. “Should I call Jason and warn him that you’re planning on murdering someone tonight?”

“What are you talking about, Drake?” Damian growled.

“You look like you’re ready to tear someone’s head off."

Damian swallowed. That was better than looking like he was sick. “If I kill Todd, he’ll have deserved it,” he said.

Tim considered that, and then shrugged. “Honestly, that sounds about right. Better him than me.” He finished checking his utility belt, and then went over the big computer screens.

Cass slipped across the room, moving with her usual silent, lethal grace. She examined Damian’s face far more closely than he was comfortable with. Her dark gaze was sharp, and there was a small frown in the crease between her brows.

“What do you want?” Damian snarled, looking away. “Leave me alone.”

She hummed. “Be safe,” she said finally, and then went to join Tim across the room.

Who did she think she was? Who did she think she was talking to? How condescending. _Be safe_. He wasn’t _weak_. The pain in his throat had built to a fire, so he didn’t grumble out loud, but he made sure to stomp as dramatically as he could around the Cave.

Damian suited up, ignoring Tim and Cass when they left, and then drank a glass of water before heading out to meet Red Hood across town.

It had taken years, but they’d finally folded Jason into the team’s regular patrol rotations. He still preferred to work alone, or with one of his bands of misfits, but when he was in Gotham, he had finally accepted that Bruce’s team knew best. Jason saw his pairings with Damian as babysitting duty, and he was right—just not about the direction of who was looking after whom.

Their tempers clashed, but Damian hoped Jason was still picking up some tips from him. After all, Jason had only trained with the League of Shadows for a short time; Damian had lived and breathed the training for the entire first decade of his life.

He thought of his mother, and swallowed again. The burn in his throat felt like a punishment for being weak enough to get sick in the first place.

“Hey, little brat,” Jason greeted when Damian landed on the roof next to him. He had to focus closely to make his movements as quiet as usual, but it was effective. “You ready? I’ve been hearing some whispers down on the south side that I want to check out. Probably nothing, but worth looking at.”

Damian shrugged.

It helped, slightly, to have Jason leading the way. Damian was able to focus on following his movements, trying to step directly where his boots touched, instead of figuring out his own path. Jason was quicker than his bulk would suggest, but Damian could keep up with him even on his worst day. It was luck that he hadn’t ended up on rotation with Cass tonight—she would have been harder to tag.

For the first half-hour, that was all it was. Damian was Jason’s shadow. No conversation, no need to thought, no need for planning. If he focused on his breathing, he could pretend like his legs weren’t already shaking.

Then, Jason stopped them at the lip of a warehouse roof, looking down at a group of men unloading boxes from the back of a truck. They were moving their wares onto a pallet that could be rolled into the warehouse. The boxes, though scuffed, were new, and then men were wearing matching coveralls.

Damian tutted. “This? Don’t be paranoid, Todd. One of these days, you’re going to accidentally beat up someone who is just doing their job.”

“Not tonight. Look at this. How much more suspicious could they be acting? Besides, this warehouse is abandoned,” Jason said. Damian couldn’t see his face, but he suspected his brother was raising an eyebrow.

Damian glanced around. It was obvious now—the name of the last owner had been scraped from the top, and the building was blatantly derelict. The men below were mostly working to unload the boxes, but there was one smoking at the front of the truck, acting as a lookout.

Jason shook his head. “Seriously, demon-brat. I didn’t think you’d be the one advocating asking twenty questions. You want to do some more research? Twiddle our thumbs until they start talking loudly about their evil plans? Maybe you want to go down and ask them nicely why the logo on their coveralls is a freaking skull?”

“Shut up,” Damian growled. He could feel his ears growing red. Considering how pale he’d been when he’d looked at the mirror earlier, the effect would have looked like a stoplight if his hood hadn’t covered them. “Let’s just do this.”

“Take them out, confiscate the stuff. Keep at least one conscious so we can figure out what they’re up to,” Jason said.

“Obviously. I’m not stupid,” Damian snapped. He was sick, not an invalid. Was he speaking as slowly as it felt? It seemed like he was trying to think through a layer of molasses. Had Todd noticed? “Try not to murder anyone tonight, Red Hood. You don’t want Father to revoke your team privileges.”

Jason bristled. “Pot and kettle, little assassin.” Without waiting for a response, he dove off the roof and into the fray. He’d learned that move from Father. Batman always got the last word.

Still scowling, Damian dropped down to the street below. Jason worked with efficient brutality, incapacitating two when he landed, but the rest of the group was putting up a fight. They were trained—poorly, but they’d all clearly been in fights before.

Stupid. Damian should have noticed that immediately. He ducked behind one of the men approaching Jason and then kicked his legs from under him, following up with a quick strike to the man’s nerve center to knock him out. He felt a shift in the air, and turned just in time to catch the baton that was whistling toward his head. He twisted it so that the man lost his grip on it, and then used it to bash him across the temple. There was a shout from behind him, where Jason was embroiled in the fight, but he couldn’t turn to check on Hood’s status.

How many were there total? Why hadn’t he counted before jumping into the middle of things?

He ducked under another punch, but missed the foot flying toward him. It connected with his chest and sent him back. Instead of absorbing the blow and landing on his feet, Damian lost his balance and stumbled away. He straightened, and then winced as a rush of black swept over his vision. He put one foot forward instinctively to catch himself as he threatened to overbalance again.

“Robin!”

Damian caught himself and shook his head violently. When his vision refused to clear, he blinked hard and stumbled slightly. There was a rush of air as something narrowly missed his face. He jerked backward, his eyes finally focusing.

Jason was in front of him, taking down their last opponent. When the man tried to struggle, Jason pulled a gun from his thigh holster and pressed it to the back of the man’s skull. “I’m not in the mood,” he snarled. “Try me.”

The man stilled. Roughly, Jason jerked his hands behind his back and zip-tied them together. The rest of the men were unconscious, sprawled around them like fallen bowling pins. Damian stepped forward to start binding them as well, but Jason pointed at him from his crouch over their prisoner. “Don’t move,” he instructed.

Damian, who had gotten dizzy again from the aborted motion, stayed still.

Jason finished securing the man, and then stood up. He stalked up to Damian, taking advantage of his height difference to loom over him. “Are you okay? What did you get hit with?”

“I’m fine,” Damian said.

Ignoring him, Jason jerked down Damian’s hood and examined his face. The domino would do little to hide Damian’s pallor. “You’re pale. Really pale. If there’s some substance at play here, or if you’re injured—”

“They barely touched me.”

“Then what the fuck was that? You were about to pass out in the middle of a fist fight.”

“I…” Damian scoffed. His voice was raspy, and his throat screamed at the use. “No, I wasn’t.”

“I swear to God, kid, don’t fucking lie to me,” Jason said. “Do I need to take you to the doc? Bruce is going to have my head.”

“No doctors. Father doesn’t need to know. I—” A coughing fit overcame him with vicious speed, choking him. He nearly doubled over, eyes stinging at the burn in his throat. When he finally was able to gulp down a breath again, he found Jason still staring at him.

“You’re fucking _sick_ ,” he said quietly.

“No, I—”

“Get the fuck out of the field,” Jason snapped. “You’re in no place to patrol tonight. How stupid are you? I can’t believe you even tried this. You think I want to carry your damn corpse back to Bruce? You shouldn’t be here.”

Damian shook his head, nearly losing his balance again. He stamped his feet to plant them more firmly, and then glared at his brother. “I can do this.”

“You absolutely can _not_. You think this a joke? Every night on patrol could be your last—don’t you get that? You come out here like _this_?”

“I’m not a child, Hood. I can handle a cough and still patrol.”

“You almost got yourself killed tonight. If we’d been fighting anyone with more fighting skills than a kindergartener, you would have _died_.”

“I could have the plague and still beat everyone in this city,” Damian snarled.

“Obviously not,” Jason snapped back.

“You—” Damian was interrupted by another coughing fit. When it ended, his vision was fuzzy again. He spread his feet to balance himself, and felt Jason’s hand on his shoulder to steady him. Once he was sure he wouldn’t fall over, he shrugged it off.

“Damn it,” Jason muttered. “You sound like shit. Do I need to call someone to come pick you up?

“Don’t you dare, Hood. I can get home on my own,” Damian said.

“Then go. I’ll finish things ever.”

Damian had lost the argument as soon as Jason had seen him stumble. His eyes felt hot as he nodded, but he kept his mouth in a thin, tight line. He turned to go.  
“Kid,” Jason added, no hint of laughter in his voice. Damian paused to listen. “If I ever see you out on patrol when you’re this sick again, I’ll shoot out your kneecaps.”

Damian swallowed with difficulty, and then launched his grappling hook at the warehouse roof. He left without saying goodbye.

 

#

 

Considering how determined Jason was to keep his distance from the family, he wasted no time in tattling about the night’s events. He was only a few blocks away when his earpiece crackled to life.

“Robin, report,” said Oracle, brisk and efficient. “Hood said that you’re on your way home.”

“I am,” Damian said. His voice was hoarse.

“Do you need someone to bring the Batmobile to your location?”

“No,” he snarled.

“You sound like death,” Tim commented.

Damian stopped to catch his breath on a shadowed roof. “I’m fine. I’ll be at the Cave in twenty. Robin out.”

“If you change your mind, someone will come pick you up,” Babs said.

As if. He didn’t need a _chauffeur_ on patrol. He wasn’t a child.

“I told you to be safe.” Cass’s voice was quiet, disappointed, in his ear.

He tore out the comms set and shoved it into his pocket. When Damian arrived at the Cave, feeling shaky and unsteady and desperate for his bed, he found Father waiting for him. He was standing by the computers in his full suit, expressionless as Damian came to a halt in front of him.

Father had been up at the Watchtower earlier that day, which was why he hadn’t been on patrol. He had trusted Damian and the others to take care of Gotham in his stead. With Dick away on another mission outside the city, Damian should have been the best bat on patrol. He should have been better. He’d disappointed them all. He’d been weak, and now they all knew.

“Damian,” Father said. “What on earth were you thinking? Jason says that you’re sick?”

“It’s not bad,” Damian protested.

“Take off the mask.”

Reluctantly, Damian did. Father looked him over, and his frown grew deeper.

When Damian had first come to live here, he had never imagined that a disappointed look from his father would ever hurt this much. In comparison, the throbbing in his throat and shakiness in his limbs were nothing.

“Diagnosis?”

Damian cleared his throat. “Strep, though it would need to be tested to be sure. It’s been going around my school, and the symptoms match.”

“You have _strep throat_? What were you doing in the field? Are you trying to get yourself _and_  the team killed?”

“I could have handled it if Todd weren’t such a whiny brat,” Damian snapped. “He’s too cautious. I could have done it. I would have stayed out if he hadn’t overreacted.”

“He said that you nearly passed out! In the middle of a fight! You could have been killed. You could have gotten _him_ killed protecting you!”

“I wouldn’t have! I know how to fight!”

“You’re still barely standing,” Father said. “You look terrible. And from the way you’re talking, you knew you were sick before you went into the field. I thought you were getting over this pigheaded stubbornness. You deliberately put yourself and the team at risk.”

“No, I went into the field to _help_ them,” Damian said. He wished he could have shouted, but his throat was threatening to give out. “I was on patrol duty tonight. You can’t pretend you would have wanted me to leave them on their own. I’d still be with Jason if he hadn’t sent me away.”

“How do you expect to help anyone when you’re dead on your feet?”

“I’d have found a way! I’ve trained for this, Father. I’ve fought in this condition and much worse. I’ve always found the way to push through. I’ve climbed cliffs with broken fingers. I’ve crossed deserts with fevers worse than this. The streets of Gotham are dangerous, but I know them. I wouldn’t have let you down.”

“Damian,” Father said, and then stopped. “Go to your room.”

“But Father—”

“You’re not doing anything else tonight. Go to your _room_.”

Hands shaking, Damian stalked out of the Cave. In his room, back in his pajamas, he splashed his face with water. It was no wonder Jason and Father had managed to see that he was sick. There were dark circles under his eyes and bright red splotches on his cheeks contrasting with an overall pallor. He hadn’t expected them to _care_ so much. If he was on his feet, he could fight. They should have trusted him. They looked at his illness and saw weakness. He was stronger than they thought. He _was_. He could have patrolled the whole night.

Despite the sting of his pride, he was glad he didn’t have to.

He scoffed at the thought and turned away from his reflection. Weak.

He laid down on top of his covers—he didn’t deserve to relax fully—and hugged a pillow tightly to his chest. Suddenly, as though getting off his feet was all his body needed, the tears that had been building behind his eyes all night broke through. Sobs ripped through him. Every breath hurt as the air passed through his raw throat. His body shook and trembled the way it did after he’d run for miles.

He had disappointed everyone. He would never be able to get them to see him as anything but a child now. He’d be lucky if Father didn’t bench him completely now that he knew of Damian’s weakness. Why couldn’t Damian suppress the illness another night? His body, which he had trained every moment since he had been born, was betraying him.

He gasped for breath. Between the pain and the crying, air seemed hard to wrangle. After what felt like ages, he was finally able to wrest his breathing back under control. His sobs dwindled to the occasional sniffle. The tears had unlocked his stuffy nose, leaving it running and sore.

Clutching his pillow more tightly, Damian tried to decide whether he had the energy to go find tissues or whether he would be stuck sniffling all night.

There was a knock on the door.

Damian held his breath.

“Damian.” It was Father. “I’m coming in.” With that, the door opened. Damian had forgotten to lock it when he’d stumbled in, though that wouldn’t have stopped Father for long if he had been determined. His room was usually his sanctuary. If Father was determined to come talk to him here, even after their fight downstairs, he must have been extremely furious.

Frantically, Damian wiped at his eyes and scrubbed at his face, hoping the mask the evidence of his crying.

Father stepped inside with a silver tray balanced in his hands. There was a steaming bowl on it, though Damian’s nose was too clogged to smell it.

“I hope you didn’t attempt to cook,” Damian grumbled, turning to face the wall.

“Of course not. Alfred had already made some.” Father set the tray on Damian’s bedside table and then pulled the chair from his desk to sit by the bed. Damian stayed turned away. “He had noticed you were sick, though not how badly. It’s spiced cauliflower.”

One of the recipes Alfred had researched with flavors from Damian’s home.

“Leave it. I’ll eat it before I sleep.”

“We need to talk.”

“You’ve already said everything you need to say. You made your point.”

“Damian,” Father said, less patiently. “Turn around.”

Damian turned.

Unexpectedly, Father did not look angry. He looked _tired_. Once he had given Damian a quick visual check, he handed him a glass of water. “Drink.”

Carefully, Damian propped himself up so he was sitting against the headboard, though it made the room spin, and took the water. He took a sip to give himself something to do. It hurt going down.

“Now,” Father said. “It seems that you are operating under some mistaken assumptions.”

“I—”

Father frowned and pointed to the glass. “Drink. Listen.”

Scowling, Damian quieted.

“Damian, you’re not with the League of Shadows any longer. I know I don’t know everything that happened there. I don’t know where Talia’s mothering ended and the training began. I don’t know the things you have endured. Sometimes, I worry that I never will, and that I will continue to make mistakes from that. I know you don’t wish to talk about it.”

That much was true. Father always got… tense when Damian mentioned his early training.

“We operate differently here. When we’re sick, we _do not_ go into the field.”

“You do,” Damian grumbled. He’d seen Father fight through illness and injury.

Father hesitated. “I’ve made mistakes,” he admitted. Damian blinked in surprise. “Luckily, I’ve had people—mostly Dick—to tell me when I’m pushing myself too hard. You have the rest of us to tell you. Tonight, you pushed too hard.”

“But you understand,” Damian said. “You know what I was doing. Rest is for the weak.”

“No,” said Father firmly. “I understand that many times, I convince myself that the world can’t spin without me to push it. I’ve convinced myself that I can push through anything—and if I couldn’t, then at least I’d be spending my last breath to save Gotham. I was wrong. You’re a child, Damian.”

“I am not!”

“You are. I’m not trying to insult you. Your body is still developing. If you push yourself over the edge now, you could be damaging yourself for years. When your body needs to rest and heal, it will tell you. You have to listen to it. Tonight, it was telling you, and you went out anyway.”

“If I could stand on my own feet, I should be out helping,” Damian said.

“No. When you go out when you’re less than your best, you’re putting yourself in real danger. You’re well-trained, but you can’t fight biology. You can’t fight life. Most days, I’ll admit, you’re a good match for what Gotham has to throw at us, and you can help. There’s always the chance that you’ll make a mistake, or that you’ll meet someone better than you, but I know that’s a risk you want to take.”

“It is!”

“But,” Father pressed, “on days when you’re vulnerable, you being out on patrol is more risk than it’s worth.”

“Father, what if Todd had run into something where he needed backup? Me sick is still better than most men at their best,” Damian said.

“We never know what the streets will bring. But your health is _the most important thing_ to me. It’s why I let you out in the first place. You’d find a way to sneak out and fight even if I tried to stop you. I learned with Dick that you’re safer on my team, under my care, than you would be there by yourself. I know that you have something you want to prove to the world, and that you need to do it with your fists. I’ve known that feeling my whole life. But if I ever thought that you were putting yourself in serious, mortal danger doing what we do, I would find a way to bench you until you were thirty. Tonight, you were careless. I’m furious that you thought that you were supposed to put yourself at risk like that.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Forget what your training is telling you that you should be doing. Listen to your body, your heart. Do you really believe you should have been out fighting tonight? Was going on patrol what you needed?” Damian didn’t answer. “No. Your body desperately needs to rest.” Father shook his head. “What am I going to do with you, Damian?”

“You can’t bench me,” he said immediately.

“No one will think less of you if you take a night off because you’re sick,” Father said. “No one here expects you to work until you bleed. I want you at your best. Just because you can push through something doesn’t mean you should. In the moment, in action, I know you can ignore a broken bone long enough to fight your way to safety. But once you’re safe, you _stop_. You let us take care of you, and you let yourself heal.” Father stared at him, watching his reaction as closely as he did in interrogations. “Do you not feel safe here?”

Damian swallowed with difficulty, putting the water glass on the table to give him an excuse to look away. “I…”

Father sighed, and he seemed to age ten years. “If you thought I’d rather you push yourself to the point of passing out during a fight, I’ve made more mistakes with you than I’d realized. Your health is important to me. Your happiness is important to me.”

“More important than Gotham?”

“Without my children, there’s nothing in Gotham for me to care about,” he said. “I need you to be safe. _That’s_ the most important thing in my life.”

Damian launched himself at Father. He hugged him tightly and tucked his head under Father’s chin. The sobs he’d thought were finished came back with a vengeance, threatening to shake him apart. This time, though, Father was there to hold him together.

Father’s warm, broad arms wrapped around him tightly.

Damian cried against his father’s chest, feeling as small as the rest of the team always said he was. Tucked close to someone as large and solid as Batman, Damian felt fragile. He waited for Father to pull away, to resist the embrace. They all knew that Father was awkward with physical affection. Instead, Father just rubbed his back while Damian sobbed.

When the tears dried, Damian pulled back, feeling his face heat. “I’m sorry, Father,” he said stiffly. “Perhaps my illness has left me less stable…”

Father was shaking his head. “Don’t apologize. I’m here for you.”

That threatened to unbalance him again. Damian took a deep breath. “I’m sorry for worrying you. For worrying everyone,” he added as the realization struck. Had Jason and Cass and Tim all been thinking the same thing? Not that Damian was weak, but that he was recklessly endangering himself? Had Jason been so upset because he’d been afraid _for_ Damian? In hindsight, their conversation was less accusatory than he had thought. “I won’t let it happen again.”

“We all make mistakes,” Father said. “That’s what the rest of us are here for. I don’t imagine any of them, especially Jason, will let you back in the field with so much as a headache any time soon.”

“He’s responsible for most of my headaches,” Damian grumbled.

Father smiled with his eyes. “I’m sure he’d be proud of that.” He leaned back. “Eat your soup. You’re staying home from school tomorrow. Alfred will take you to the doctor in the morning to confirm that it’s strep and to get your medicine.”

“And…patrol?” Father’s threat to bench him until he was thirty was echoing in his head.

“When you’re better. When we can _both_ agree that you’re better. Until then, your job is to rest and heal. That’s an order.” He reached out and ruffled Damian’s hair in an unexpectedly fond gesture. “There’s too much me in you, isn’t there?”

Damian sat up taller. His mother may have been the one to create him, but he still had time to shape himself. The man in front of him was not the worst he could become. “I hope so,” he said.

Father shook his head. “Feel better. Let me know if you need anything. Anything.”

Leaning back against the headboard, Damian nodded. “I will,” he promised.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [Tumblr](http://starknjarvis27.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
